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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 10

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The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking

The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages a world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.

Leadership, Believe, Sacrifice

"The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements" by Eric Hoffer, (p. 111), 1951.

...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.

Dedication, People, Majority

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

Responsibility, Men, Thinking

"The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 84, 1955.

EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.

Desire, Different, Intense

"The Passionate State of Mind".

To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.

Real, Believe, Self

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.

Overcoming, Inferiority, Resentment

Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

Hope, Disappointment, Expectations

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.

Business, People, World

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.

Patriotic, Europe, Raw Materials

"The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1955.

Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

Animal, Men, Play

"Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 28, 1973.

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.

Happiness, Time, Work

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.

Evil, Deception, Able

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

Men, Play, Skills

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.

Hate, Doors, Self

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

Religious, Humility, Humble

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.

Conservative, Love Making, Radical

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.

Sacrifice, Self, Society

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

A good sentence is a key . It unlocks the mind of the reader.

Keys, Mind, Reader

The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility

Struggle, Shelter, Poverty

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse .

Dream, Lying, Wrath

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.11, Harper Collins

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

Good Life, Fighting, Men

"The Temper of Our Time". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1967.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

Needs, Cures, Protest

Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

Drama, Artist, Destiny

Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.

Humble, Sacrifice, Self

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.

Running, Fall, Men

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.14, Harper Collins

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